Commons-Oriented Economists

Introduction

In October/November 2010, the Commons Strategies Group, consisting of David Bollier, Silke Helfrich, Bea Busaniche and myself (Michel Bauwens, under the auspices and with support of the Heinrich Boll Foundation, organized the Berlin Commons Conference, which brought together representatives of physical and digital commons under the shared topic of 'commons-oriented policy-making'.

For 2013, CSG is proposing to organize a follow-up conference, this time on commons-oriented economists.

Below is some preparatory material.

A useful warning from Marco Berlinguer:

"a commons approach to economy implies a redefinition of what is economy, what is value and a radical re-discussion about the measures (and the structures of power) which are embedded in the capitalistic money codes. And therefore economists as such aren't sufficient to cover all the implications."

For more about the CSG proposal, see: Proposal for a Conference on Commons-Oriented Economics

Introduction and Themes

• macro-economic conceptions: how does a commons orientation fits in today's economic approaches

• economy of the physical commons: what can we learn about the governance and economics of local physical commons

• the economy of digital common: what can we learn from the economics governing digital commons

• money and funding as a commons: from local credit commons to transnational monetary reform

• solving the biospheric crisis: preserving and protecting the natural commons

Steering Committee

1. Land and Nature: Saki Bailey (Italy)
2. Money & Value: Ludwig Schuster (Germany)
3. Labor: Heike Löschmann (Germany)
4. Culture, Science & Knowledge: Mike Linksvayer (US)
5. Infrastructure: Miguel Said Vieira (Brazil)
6. Life, Meaning & Spirituality: Andreas Weber (Germany)

Consolidated Draft List of Commons-Oriented Economist per stream

Land and Nature

Responsible for stream: Saki Bailey (Italy)

Recommended:

• Josh Farley, U. of Vermont (ecological economics, community development)

• Mark Whitaker, Toward a Bioregional State (bk), combines Commodity Ecology and the Civic Democratic Instititutions of the Bioregional State form, for longterm protection of the watershed nature commons.

• #Alanna Harzok on the Land Commons

See also:

1. James Boyce, UMass Amherst (ecological economics)
2. Herman Daly, steady-state economics
3. Peter Söderbaum - important "green economist,
4. Peter Barnes [1], Pt. Reyes Station, California (former entrepreneur; commons; Sky Trust) *

Money & Value

Responsible for stream: Ludwig Schuster (Germany)

• Tiberius Brastaviceanu, open value accounting

See also:

1. Ellen Brown, reforming finance
2. Chris Cook, Open Capital approach
3. Thomas Greco, instituting Credit Commons
4. Hazel Henderson, Ethical Markets
5. Mellor, Mary ( 2010). The Future of Money, Pluto Press.
6. David Hales; Towards a Quality Financial Commons?
7. Adrian Wrigley on Land-Based Money: Adrian Wrigley discusses a way to ensure both money supply and land values are kept in the public domain.
8. Luigi Doria and Luca Fantacci (see [2]
9. Marc Gauvin [BIBO]
10. Bill Maurer at UC-Irvine on payments systems as commons/public good
11. Stephen Belgin und Bernard Lietaer

Labor

Responsible for stream: Heike Löschmann (Germany)

• Tom Walker: Towards a Labor Commons through Social Accounting, through seeing Employment as a Common Pool Resource

• Hilary Wainwright: From Labour as Commodity to Labour as a Common

See also:

1. Jaroslav Vanek, labour cooperative economics, Jaroslav_Vanek_on_Cooperative_Economics

Recommended by George Papanikolau:

"About commons oriented economists my proposal (in fact I should rather say a very strong recommendation) is Petros Linardos Rylmon working in the institute of the General confederation of Greek workers and in Nikos Poulantza's foundation. He has written books on knowledge communities and he is enthusiast about the commons (has discovered them relatively lately). He is also involved in SYRIZA's alternative economy team. I think it is a very good choice which will help spread the word inside the Greek left (David maybe is not familiar with the peculiarities of the Greek politics)."

Culture, Science & Knowledge

Responsible for stream: Mike Linksvayer (US)

• Philippe Aigrain, free culture, IP and filesharing economics

Infrastructure

Responsible for stream: Miguel Said Vieira (Brazil)

• Brett Frischmann. Minnesota Law Review essay (April 2005) "An Economic Theory of Infrastructure and Commons Management: Projected book: Infrastructure: Social Value of Shared Resources.

• Kevin Carson, mutualist economics centered around distributed manufacturing

Life, Meaning & Spirituality

Responsible for stream: Andreas Weber (Germany)

• Denis Postle: Psychological Commons

Also: research into 'civic accountability' which is likely to be an integral necessity of any viable glocal commons economies. See: Civic Accountability for the Commons

• Charles Eisenstein; author of Sacred Economics

• [Manfred Max-Neef]], Chilean ecological economist; for his work on 'fundamental human needs'; Book: From an Economics of Power and Greed to an Economics of Compassion and the Common Good‎

Older Draft version of Economists: Generalists

Macro-Economic Transformations

1. Christian Arnsperger: see, Six Framework Conditions for Global Systemic Change
2. Andrea Fumagalli, Italy, Cognitive Capitalism
3. Wolfgang Hoeschele, geographer at Truman State University, Missouri (Solidarity Economy, commons)
4. James Quilligan, essays on the Global Commons in Kosmos Journal, etc ..
5. Juliette Schor, author of the book Plenitude
6. Samuel Bowles, evolution of property
7. Marvin Brown, on the civic economy

Alternative Economic Models

1. Allen Butcher, expert on Community Economics
2. Alain Caille, MAUSS, France, Gift Economy
3. Kevin Carson, mutualist economics centered around distributed manufacturing
4. Gerald Epstein, UMass Amherst (cooperatives)
5. Vasilis Kostakis, TUT, The Partner State Approach
6. Enrico Grazzini, author of Italian-book: The Sharing Economy as a Way Out of the Crisis (Editori Internazionali Riuniti, 2011

Book: on alternative economic models or ecological economics. It has ten contributors, including on the 'gift economy', 'synergistic economy' and 'compact' (contract and converge) models:

• Nelson A and Timmerman F (2011) (Eds) Life Without Money: Building Fair and Sustainable Economies. Pluto Press: London. ISBN: 978-0-7453-3165-2. Hardcover and paperback, see <http://www.lifewithoutmoney.info> and <http://lifewithoutmoneybook.blogspot.co.uk/> The book site includes testimonials, media, extracts from a review in Journal of Australian Political Economy and lists talks overseas and in Australia under events.

Older Draft version of Economists: Per topic

Commons Value Metrics

• Tiberius Brastaviceanu, open value accounting

• Denis Postle: research into 'civic accountability' which is likely to be an integral necessity of any viable glocal commons economies. See: Civic Accountability for the Commons

Ecological Economics

• Peter Victor, managing without growth, towards economics of flow, a dialogue partner between commons and ecological economics [3]

The Economics of the Physical Commons

1. Peter Barnes [4], Pt. Reyes Station, California (former entrepreneur; commons; Sky Trust) *

Infrastructure

• Brett Frischmann. Minnesota Law Review essay (April 2005) "An Economic Theory of Infrastructure and Commons Management: Projected book: Infrastructure: Social Value of Shared Resources.

The Economics of the Digital and 'Cognitive' Commons

1. Philippe Aigrain, free culture, IP and filesharing economics
2. Yochai Benkler [5], Harvard Law School (digital commons; not an economist, but he might as well be)
3. Weber, Steve. (2005). The Success of Open Source. Harvard University Press.
4. In Italy, Marcello Cini, who is a physicist, writes since years on knowledge economy and commons. His last book: Sergio Bellucci e Marcello Cini firmano Lo spettro del capitale. Per una critica dell'economia della conoscenza(Codici Edizioni 2009
5. Yann Moulier-Boutang, distributed taxation, Cognitive Capitalism

• Serge Proulx à l'École des communs ! Sociologue, professeur titulaire à l’École des médias, Faculté de communication de l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), directeur du Groupe de recherche et d’observation des usages et cultures médiatiques (GRM) et codirecteur du Laboratoire de communication médiatisée par ordinateur (LabCMO). Il est chercheur associé au Département sciences économiques et sociales de Telecom ParisTech (Paris).

(http://sergeproulx.uqam.ca/la-creation-de-la-valeur-economique-en-mode-numerique/)

• Jacques Godbout

"Internet a généré au fil du temps une véritable "culture de la contribution" qui rend obsolète toute réflexion sociologico-économique qui ne prendrait en compte que les seules valeur d’usage et valeur d’échange pour saisir comment est créée la valeur économique dans le mode numérique. En ce sens, la "valeur de lien" suggérée par Jacques T. Godbout (Ce qui circule entre nous, Seuil, 2007) est intéressante pour cerner ce phénomène de la contribution cognitive en ligne (exemple: j’évalue / je commente un resto, un livre, un bien de consommation, etc. et je diffuse cette information via des plateformes internet). Les "collectifs en ligne" (appelés aussi – mais abusivement – "communautés virtuelles") sont en quelque sorte un nouveau support social permettant de générer cette "valeur de lien"." (http://sergeproulx.uqam.ca/la-creation-de-la-valeur-economique-en-mode-numerique/)

The Financial and Credit Commons

1. Ellen Brown, reforming finance
2. Chris Cook, Open Capital approach
3. Thomas Greco, instituting Credit Commons
4. Hazel Henderson, Ethical Markets
5. Mellor, Mary ( 2010). The Future of Money, Pluto Press.
6. David Hales; Towards a Quality Financial Commons?
7. Adrian Wrigley on Land-Based Money: Adrian Wrigley discusses a way to ensure both money supply and land values are kept in the public domain.
8. Luigi Doria and Luca Fantacci (see [6]
9. Marc Gauvin [BIBO]
10. Bill Maurer at UC-Irvine on payments systems as commons/public good
11. Stephen Belgin und Bernard Lietaer

Protecting the Natural Commons

1. James Boyce, UMass Amherst (ecological economics)
2. Herman Daly, steady-state economics
3. Josh Farley, U. of Vermont (ecological economics, community development)
4. Mark Whitaker, Toward a Bioregional State (bk), combines Commodity Ecology and the Civic Democratic Instititutions of the Bioregional State form, for longterm protection of the watershed nature commons.
5. Peter Söderbaum - important "green economist,

Land Commons

1. Alanna Harzok

Justice and Equity in the Commons

1. Riane Eisler, (suggested by Nancy Roof), on dominator vs partnership economies
2. Ricoveri, Giovanna, (2010). Beni comuni vs merci. Jaka Book.
3. Luis Razeto [7], solidarity as a productive factor in the economy (factor 'c') (soidarity economics)

• Labor Commons:

1. Tom Walker: Towards a Labor Commons through Social Accounting, through seeing Employment as a Common Pool Resource
2. Paul Hartzog: General Theory of Unemployment
3. Jaroslav Vanek, labour cooperative economics, Jaroslav_Vanek_on_Cooperative_Economics
4. Hilary Wainwright: From Labour as Commodity to Labour as a Common

Recommended by George Papanikolau:

"About commons oriented economists my proposal (in fact I should rather say a very strong recommendation) is Petros Linardos Rylmon working in the institute of the General confederation of Greek workers and in Nikos Poulantza's foundation. He has written books on knowledge communities and he is enthusiast about the commons (has discovered them relatively lately). He is also involved in SYRIZA's alternative economy team. I think it is a very good choice which will help spread the word inside the Greek left (David maybe is not familiar with the peculiarities of the Greek politics)."

• Feminist economics:

• • Nancy Folbre, UMass Amherst (feminist economics/caring economy)
  • Marilyn Waring, New Zealand: "If Women Counted". This feminist analysis of modern economics reveals how economic theory automatically excludes women's housework, caring of the young, sick and the old from value of people. Waring later produced a documentary on the same topic, Who's Counting.
  • Federici, Silvia. (2010). Feminism and the Politics of the Commons.

1. Genevieve Vaughan, has studied the Gift Economy from a feminist perspective

Human Economic Behaviour/Psychology and the Commons

1. Manfred Max-Neef, Chilean ecological economist; for his work on 'fundamental human needs'; Book: From an Economics of Power and Greed to an Economics of Compassion and the Common Good‎
2. Katherine Gibson, Australia (community economics; former writing partner with the late Julie Graham, a.k.a., J.-K. Gibson-Graham)

Spiritual Economics

1. Charles Eisenstein; author of Sacred Economics

• Buddhist Economics
  • Padmasiri de Silva, Monash, Melbourne (Buddhist economics)
  • Peter Daniels. Griffith, Brisbane (Buddhist economics)
  • Apichai Puntasen, Thailand, Buddhist Economics

Directory

A list originally compiled by David Bollier:

• Jagdeesh Rao
• Edwin Daniel

1. Sam Bowles, Santa Fe Institute (economics as seen through complexity theory & evolutionary sciences)
2. Eric Britton [8], urban transportation economist
3. Ian Fletcher, author of "Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace It and Why" (http://www.freetradedoesntwork.com/). [9]
4. Friederike Habermann. Silke Helfrich writes: "ecommonist, rather than an economist; Actually she frames the world we are all struggling for as Ecommony."
5. Richard Heinberg, a Senior Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute (ecological economist, commons orientation?)
6. Warren Johnson, frugality [10]
7. David Korten, author
8. Julie Matthaei - Wolfgang Hoeschele writes: "she's a feminist economist, involved in the US Solidarity Economy Network. I don't think she's published on the commons per se but she is definitely supportive of the approach." (jmatthaei@wellesley.edu)
9. Antonio Negri [11] and Michael Hardt, authors of Commonwealth. George Por writes: "They are not economists in an economistic sense but the book is excellent, in the best traditions of political economy. Their analysis refines and goes beyond the triangular model of public, private, and commons sphere, so popular currently in the commons movement."
10. Richard Norgaard, UC Berkeley
11. Wolfgang Sachs, Wuppertal Institute, Germany

See also:

1. Robert Costanza, U. of Oregon (a leading ecological economist; not sure of commons-orientation)

New economics players in the U.S. [12]:

1. BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) -- Michelle Long, Judy
2. Wicks, Merrian Goggio Borgeson
3. BerkShares -- Susan Witt
4. Capital Institute -- John Fullerton
5. Center for New American Dream -- Juliet Schor
6. Cutting Edge Capital -- Jenny Kassan
7. Democracy Collaborative -- Gar Alperovitz, Steve Dubb, Ted Howard
8. Demos -- Lew Daly
9. Equal Dollars -- Deneene Brockington
10. Ethical Markets -- Hazel Henderson
11. Global Development And Environment Institute -- Neva Goodwin
12. Global Reporting -- Mike Wallace
13. Green Village Initiative -- Dan Levinson
14. Greenhorns -- Severine von Tscharmer
15. Hawthorne Valley Farm -- Martin Ping
16. Institute for Policy Studies -- John Cavanagh, Chuck Collins
17. Intervale Project -- Will Raap
18. Meta-Currency Project -- Eric Harris Braun
19. Presencing Institute at MIT -- Otto Scharmer
20. New Economics Founation -- Stewart Wallis, David Boyle, Andrew Simms
21. New Economics Institute -- Robert Massie
22. New Economy Network -- Sarah Stranahan
23. Oberlin Project -- David Orr
24. On the Commons -- Peter Barnes, Alexa Bradley

New Economy Working Group -- David Korten

1. Post Carbon Institute -- Richard Heinberg
2. Practical Action -- Paul Smith Lomas
3. ProHumana -- Soledad Teixido
4. Purpose -- Alnoor Ladha
5. Resources for Human Development -- Robert Fishman
6. RSFSocial Finance -- Don Shaffer
7. Stakeholder Forum -- Felix Dodds, Kirsty Scneeberger
8. Tellus Institute -- Allen White, Marjorie Kelly
9. Time Banks USA -- Edgar Cahn, Christine Gray, Lisa Conland
10. Tomales Bay Institute -- Peter Barnes
11. Transition Towns, -- Trathen Heckman
12. United Nations Foundation -- Tim Wirth
13. University of California, Berkeley -- Richard Norgaard
14. University of Massacchusetts -- James Boyce
15. Vermont Department of Agriculture -- Chuck Ross
16. Vermont Law School -- Gus Speth
17. Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund -- Ellen Kahler

Sources recommended by Robert Searle:

The following has vids, and other data which could be helpful in forming a listing of "relevant" economists.

http://ineteconomics.org/ ; http://ineteconomics.org/question/best-new-media-resources-new-thinking?page=2

a) A campaign against economic education as it exists today.. http://www.toxictextbooks.com/

b) Paecon, the student movement which still tries to change things in economic academia. http://paecon.net/

c) Heterodox Economics deals of course with alternative economic ideas... http://www.hetecon.com/

d) Heterodox Directory... http://www.heterodoxnews.com/directory/index.htm

Organisations:

1. Association for Georgist Studies (the Henry George crowd)
2. Green Economics Institute in England [13]; Wolfgang Hoechsele writes: "they are very much interested in social and environmental justice. The directors of the institute are Miriam Kennet (contact at Miriam Kennet <greeneconomicsinstitute@yahoo.com> and Volker Heinemann); they could probably suggest further economists

supportive of the commons.

1. New Economics Institute, U.S.A.: E.F. Schumacher Foundation spinoff with ties to New Economics Foundation in UK, which aspires to develop alternative economic approaches.

Brazil

Via Ivana Bentes:

commons-oriented researchers at UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and at other Brazilians universities:

Henrique Antoun (Escola de Comunicação da UFRJ) - Rio de Janeiro Brazil

henrique antoun" <henriqueantoun@gmail.com>

Ivana Bentes ( Escola de Comunicação da UFRJ) - Rio de Janeiro Brazil ivanabentes@gmail.com

Pablo de Soto ( Escola de Comunicação da UFRJ) - Rio de Janeiro Brazil <pablodesoto@gmail.com>,

Oona Castro (Escola de Comunicação da UFRJ) - Rio de Janeiro Brazil <oonacastro@gmail.com>,

Fabio Malini (UFES) - Vitória-ES Brazil <fabiomalini@gmail.com>,

Pablo Ortellado (USP) São Paulo Brazil <paort@uol.com.br>,

Ronaldo Lemos - Fundação Getúlio Vargas/FGV Rio de Janeiro <rlemos@fgv.br>,

Commons-Oriented Thinkers

1. Iain Boal [14]
2. George Caffentzis [15]
3. Peter Linebaugh, commons historian
4. Raj Patel [16]

Historical:

1. Gerrard Winstanley [17]

To add later

• Thanks to the work of a small, brave group of dissident economists — scholars like Ralph Gomory, William Baumol, Erik Reinert, and Ha-Joon Chang — the credibility of free trade as a theoretical doctrine is crumbling, and the discipline will eventually change its mind.

• Suggested by Marco Berlinguer: "the studies that mainly antropologists and economists of the social and solidarity economy schools have done, mainly moving from the work of Polanyi and Mauss. Names like Louis Coraggio in Latin America and Jean Louis Laville in Europe are exemples. But they normally don't use (yet, I guess) the notion of the commons. I am quite sure it would be quite stimulating a mutual learning between commoners and these studies."